Many systems exist for tracking and locating files. However, most of these systems are paper based and not automated.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,414 to Foster, entitled "Coded File Locator System" is directed to an automated file locator system for tracking and locating files. This system utilizes bar codes contained on each hanging file folder in a filing cabinet drawer, along with a bar code scanner which is positioned at the top of the filing cabinet and which scans each file folder in a drawer as the drawer is opened.
Foster's system uses a scanning device that is mounted to each filing cabinet so that the recording and signaling process is done "automatically" by virtue of pulling a vertical cabinet drawer in and out. However, this requires that scanning hardware be attached to every cabinet and possibly every drawer. This approach is cost prohibitive because the user faces an incremental cost as additional cabinets are added to the system, as well as the complexity in wiring the array of scanning devices (attached to each cabinet) to a central computer. Further, in the signaling process, it may be difficult for the operator to accurately locate a specific folder under the scanner given that a significantly heavy drawer full of files is being pulled out.
Applicant's invention is to put a scanning system in a hand-held battery operated device that can be conveniently run across a set of folders. The device is light and capable of monitoring the folders over which it passes at high and low speed. The operator can quickly pass the device over a drawer. If searching for a specific folder, when the device signals the folder has been found (via a light and a beep) the operator will undoubtedly have passed beyond the sought folder. Since the device is light and easy to move the operator simply backs up, moving more slowly until the device again signals.
Since there is only one required scanning device the user can add additional cabinets without significant additional cost. Further, since the device moves along a drawer, the possibility of requiring a scanning device for each drawer, as in Foster's concept, does not exist.
The following components aid in actually allowing the scanning system to perform more efficiently than existing solutions:
1) The invention of a perpendicular filing tab. This new tab provides an easy to read surface for either human or machine. This is important because the scanning process must be essentially error free in order for users to have any confidence that the system can in fact reliably track folders.
2) The invention of the EVL bar code which operates in a relatively nonaligned environment (meaning the scanner does not have to precisely pass over the bar code). On the other hand, the EVL bar code does not waste any of the scanned area--it packs information throughout the scanned area and therefore can support a large number of unique file codes (folders). Alignment is an important issue because 1) the user may not attach the filing tab to the folder in an exact and consistent location; 2) the folders will shift position on the rails on which they rest and; 3) variations in cabinet to cabinet require some degree of scanner to bar code alignment tolerance.
3) The invention of using a track on which a portable scanner rides while scanning folders in a cabinet or other folder storage system. The portability keeps the cost of the system reasonable and substantially independent of the number of folders and cabinets making up the system. The use of a track allows for easy movement of the portable scanner and controlled positioning with regard to the folders.
4) The invention of using a magnetic rolling system so that the scanner can be easily attached and removed from, for example, but not limited to, a conventional lateral filing cabinet. This allows the scanner to operate with millions of existing lateral filing cabinets without modification of the cabinets (other than attaching cabinet and drawer numbers).
Applicant has found experimentally, that in a Foster type system, if the file is ajar or shifted from side to side that the system is unable to properly scan the entire bar code. However, in order to keep costs down, applicant would prefer to avoid having to scan the entire width of the file cabinet drawer, or depth, depending on the orientation of the files in the drawer.
The Foster system is also much more expensive to implement since it requires the installation of a scanner on each filing cabinet.
What is needed is a file scanner system which does not require the installation of a scanner on each filing cabinet, and with an improved bar code which allows for accurately reading the bar code when the file is shifted.